Porsche Works Drive for Earl Bamber at Petit Le Mans

2014’s hottest Supercup hot shot has picked up a Porsche works drive for the 2014 Petit Le Mans. New Zealand’s super talented Earl Bamber is set to join Patrick Long and Michael Christensen in a factory 911 RSR.

Petit Le Mans is run at Road Atlanta in Georgia. A ten-hour race run to ACO regulations, class winners receive automatic entry to the following year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. Petit Le Mans is the final race of the 2014 Tudor United Sportscar Championship. The highest-placed Porsche driver in GT Le Mans is Michael Christensen (excellent) who is 30 points down on the leader, Jonathan Bomarito. Porsche boys Leh Keen and Cooper MacNeil head to Georgia with a shout of taking the GT Daytona title, just four points behind leader Dane Cameron.

Porsche Works Drive for Earl Bamber

The drive is great news for Bamber, but as Sportscar365 reports, it has sadly forced the retirement of NGT Motorsport from Petit Le Mans for the second year running. Last year, the team pulled out following the tragic death of Sean Edwards while instructing on a track day in Australia.

The withdrawal of the Momo-sponsored NGT car takes away a fantastic opportunity to watch Bamber racing in the same team as his closest Supercup rival, Kuba Giermaziak, but gives Porsche a chance to see how Bamber handles the North American mayhem. Stuttgart is slightly under pressure for Petit, withdrawing one of its three-car entry as Richard Lietz is out with injury and altermative works pilots are committed elsewhere: Marco Holzer with the Falken Petit car and Fred Makowiecki in Thailand’s Super GT series.

Bamber has been absolute mustard this year, thrilling spectators with total commitment in Supercup. Despite stiff competition from established names like Giermaziak and experienced Porsche Junior, Klaus Bachler, it is Bamber on a Cup Scholarship drive who tops the points: five ahead of Giermaziak with two races remaining, both to be held in America. Earl has already stitched up the rookie championship, but is well placed to win the overall title. Brave money bets against him doing the job.

So far in 2014, Bamber has claimed two wins to Giermaziak’s three, but two fastest laps to Giermaziak’s one. Interestingly, the 991 Supercup has set no new fastest times in 2014: all the current fastest laps for tracks used prior to 2014 were set by earlier 911s. Who else would like to put Earl in a 997 RSR and see how much faster he could go around Spa, where he took pole and fastest lap this year? Awesome performance in a rookie season.

The current Porsche works driver line up is the biggest it has ever been. LMP1 squad has six members: Bernhard, Dumas, Hartley, Jani, Lieb and Webber. The GT squad has eight drivers: Bergmeister, Christensen, Henzler, Holzer, Lietz, Long, Pilet and Tandy. There are four Porsche Juniors: Bachler, de Philippi, Müller and Riberas.

Bamber is like a Kiwi barbecue, turning up the heat on illustrious names. Bamber/Tandy/Holzer in a factory RSR for 2015 – or maybe Bamber/Tandy/Lietz. Would be cool to see Christensen in LMP1 next year. Fantasy Porsche Works Team racing app anyone?